Mesopotamia

Happily, nothing remains of the homus appetizer. So just take our word for it.

Restaurant Mesopotamia
Inhaber: Sinan Coskun

Fröhliche Türkenstraße 12
93047 Regensburg

Telefon: 0941 / 5839513
http://www.restaurant-mesopotamia.de/

ZOMG! After the big let-down that was Exil about a year ago, we’d kind of given up hope on our once-awesome Kurdish food hookup in Regensburg. But while walking through the city on our way to Kaufland at the Arcaden on Friday, we spotted a new (to us) Middle-Eastern restaurant and walked closer. Sarah let out a shriek as she recognized echoes from our culinary past in the names of the main dishes and we both remarked that the font on the menu was like an old friend — yes, our old friend Exil.

Practically holding our breath, we strolled in, sat down, and ordered a Homus appetizer. Imagine our delight when it turned out to be the reddish homus variety we’ve never seen anywhere else (not even Dearborn!). This was a really good sign. I ordered the Pir Kebab — my default Exil dish (back when Exil was good) to really give this new incarnation of our favorite restaurant a proper control group. Then, as now, it came with grilled seasoned lamb chunks on skewers, lightly-fried potatoes faintly spiced with paprika (or some other magic red stuff), the standard salad, zatziki, and the one true spinach/feta side dish (our attempt at recreation pales in comparison…gotta work on that some more now that the source material is available for reverse engineering purposes again). The result: as good as it ever was.

It’s back, baby!

This was our JOINT, our fall-back, our favorite place to go and enjoy good food with friends. When Exil changed owners and overhauled the menu, they didn’t start serving bad food, they started serving indifferent food, which might be even worse. So imagine our delight, after going without for over a year and a half, at walking into Mesopotamia and recognizing the cook! The plates were the same, the way food was arranged was the same, the bread was the same and (most important!) the flavor was the same. Cliff had his old standby and I had mine – the Beritan (formerly Aras): thinly-pounded chicken breasts, marinated and grilled, turkey rolls stuffed with the divine spinach and walnuts with a white-wine/turmeric sauce, salad, potatoes, tzaziki and bulgur. It was everything I remembered! Incredibly flavorful and delicious.

When it was time to settle up, the waitress asked if we lived in Regensburg, we replied that, yes, we did and we used to go to the old place all the time. She delightedly told us that her father was the chef and he recognized us, as she set down complimentary shots of ouzo. She also filled us in that the first Saturday of every month is a buffet night with entertainment. We will be going back. And we will probably ask you to join us.